NCsoft's City of
Villains Goes Gold is the press release announcing Cryptic's follow-up to
City of Heroes is gold, and the MMORPG should be heading to stores in North
America by the end of the month. The announcement also has word that those who
have pre-ordered will get a two-day head start on the game:

AUSTIN,
Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 2005--NCsoft® North America announces that City
of Villains(TM) has reached gold master status and will appear on retailers'
shelves in North America at the end of the month. NCsoft also confirmed that
customers who purchased and registered their City of Villains pre-order boxes
will receive a two-day head start for game play.

City of Villains, a stand-alone sequel to last year's hit, City of Heroes®, is
expected to be released on Oct. 31, with a subscription price of $14.99 per
month. The two-day head start will begin after 12 a.m. EST on Oct. 29.
Purchasers of the City of Villains pre-order box, which is currently available
at retailers across North America, have been invited into the City of Villains
beta test and may participate in the head-start.

Existing City of Heroes' customers can purchase City of Villains and subscribe
to both games for the single subscription price of $14.99. Both games were
developed by Cryptic Studios(TM).

The problem is, coh players and some uninformed players are looking at it as just an expansion. The gameplay is very similar, but it stands perfectly well on its own, without coh at all. And likewise, coh stands alone fine also, minus "guild" bases that you get from getting cov also. The "expansion" nearly doubles the content of the game, adds 5 classes to the existing 7, nearly a dozen extra-large zones, bases, new systems for loot, a new gladiator battle system that's damn fun(xp gaining bug or not)

I am hard-pressed to think of an expansion that added this much content short of maybe trials of atlantis for daoc(booo...the expansion that ruined the game) but even that was about half of the content that city of villains has.